This is not an album, this a religious experience. This is an intimate portrait of one of the most enigmatic characters in modern music, painted with his own words. This is the album that opened my eyes to the way that music can speak directly to your soul. This is the album that changed my life.

Even when surrounded by supremely talented musicians in their own right, Ocean stood out as the crown jewel in a sea of diamonds

In a similar vein to a painting, Blonde can only truly be appreciated when viewed in the context of its creation and, for this, we need to go back to 2011 when Ocean released his debut mixtape, Nostalgia Ultra. At the time, he was a member of LA hip-hop collective Odd Future, but the lyrical maturity and avant-garde production of this record made it a cut above what any other members of the group were releasing. Even when surrounded by supremely talented musicians in their own right, he stood out as the crown jewel in a sea of diamonds. This ability to always be a step ahead of his contemporaries is a defining characteristic of Ocean’s music and has won him praise from industry heavyweights like Kanye West and Beyoncé.

The other major hallmark from his career is his expertise at writing deeply personal songs whilst avoiding clichéd self-aggrandising – the use of his personal experiences are merely a way to tether abstract ideas about life to reality. Given that he closely guards information about his private life, whether these events happened or not is almost an irrelevance; he has no desire to make the listener invested in him as a person. His art is his truth and it’s up to the listener to apply it to their own life, not his, and see how it emotionally resonates with them.

The final piece of context that sets up the album is the relationship between Ocean and the media. His rejection of the traditional notion of fame and celebrity culture is one of the main reasons that I personally admire him so much. He seldom participates in interviews so his music is the only outlet through which his fans can hear his thoughts and this, in an era where Twitter means you can know everything about everyone, preserves his mystique. It makes you savour every piece of his art because you never know when, or indeed if, you’re going to get more.

Over his career, the only time he dropped this carefully guarded wall of privacy was when, ahead of his second studio album Channel Orange being released, he posted a letter on his personal Tumblr page where he opened up about his sexuality. It’s difficult to write about this without sounding overly condescending by saying how “brave” it was, but that’s the truth. In a time where the sexual orientation of public figures is seen by portions of the media as fodder for some kind of tawdry guessing game, it was a welcome change of pace for someone to be able to control their narrative and open up about themselves on their own terms.

In a genre whose stock in trade is largely hyper-masculinity and female objectification, it can’t be overstated how important the visibility of people who don’t conform to these stereotypes are

There were, of course, people who were quick to question why he felt the need to share these details about his personal life, but they were being – possibly wilfully – ignorant to the sociological impact of a moment like this. In a genre whose stock in trade is largely hyper-masculinity and female objectification, it can’t be overstated how important the visibility of people who don’t conform to these stereotypes are. By deriding those who make the decision to stick their head above the parapet on these issues, you are complicit in keeping the status-quo where hip-hop and rap are dominated by rampant heterosexuality. To use the words of Kevin Abstract on the 2017 Brockhampton track ‘JUNKY’: ‘Why you always rap about bein’ gay? / ‘cause not enough n***** rappin’ be gay’.

Going back to the album itself, the opening cut, “Nikes”, immediately subverts the listeners expectations by not having Ocean’s natural voice being the first thing you hear, instead his vocals are pitched up and take on an almost anonymous quality where it could be anyone delivering the lines. This is coupled with extremely minimal instrumentation consisting of drawn-out synthesiser notes and understated percussion. This sparseness in the mix is a theme across the entire record and gives it a sense of intimacy between the listener and the artist, so much so that it feels as though Ocean is the tour guide for the journey of self-discovery that you embark upon whilst experiencing his music.

In the second half of the song, the listener is rewarded with their first taste of Ocean’s unadulterated voice as he launches into a verse that blurs the lines between singing and rapping, displaying his lyrical dexterity by skimming over many different topics in quick succession. Despite this seemingly scatter-gun approach though, everything he says, down to each individual word choice, has been painstakingly selected to lay a trail of breadcrumbs that the listener needs to follow to truly appreciate the nuances of the song. The attention to detail that Ocean approaches his music with elevates him to the status of an almost auteur-like figure in the music industry who hones his craft until it is, to his mind, perfect.

Ocean is no stranger to a musical epic as evidenced on his debut album, Channel Orange, where the song “Pyramids” weaved a complex narrative arc over it’s ten-minute runtime. On Blonde he emulated this with “Nights”, a song that is perhaps best described as an odyssey through his past. It’s a revealing insight into his life before fame and looks at the struggles he faced as a young man in modern America. The timing of the beat switch in the track coincides exactly with the halfway point in the album and is another allusion to the theme of duality that repeatedly crops up, even in the title which is spelt in the masculine form, blond, on the cover art but spelt in the feminine form, blonde, when referred to elsewhere.

Speaking of the beat switch, it is nothing short of magical. Ocean’s dreamy falsetto is juxtaposed by the shrill wailing from an electric guitar that ratchets up the tension until it is finally relieved by a gorgeous soundscape of delicate synthesiser notes and crisp 808 drums. In the second leg of the song, Ocean made the interesting production decision to pitch up his vocals by two semi-tones to make it sound as though his younger self is delivering the lines – combining perfectly with the lyrical content to evoke powerful feelings of nostalgia.

To shuffle the album would be like reading a book by picking chapters at random – you’d get to the end eventually, but you’d miss out on the journey

In an age where the majority of albums just appear to be a collection of unrelated songs thrown together, once again Ocean chose to stand out by making something that’s more of a listening experience. To shuffle the album would be like reading a book by picking chapters at random – you’d get to the end eventually, but you’d miss out on the journey. This is especially apparent on the records two skits: “Be Yourself” and “Facebook Story”. These aren’t just random interludes to pad out the runtime, they are instead brief vignettes that address another of the album’s key themes – communication or the lack thereof.

“Be Yourself” is set up as an answerphone message to Ocean from his mother where she is giving him life advice which shows the power of communication in the modern age, even in someone’s absence you can still connect with them. On the other hand, “Facebook Story” features French producer SebastiAn recounting a cautionary tale where his ex-girlfriend left him after she interpreted his hesitance to accept her as a friend on Facebook as a sign of his infidelity. This highlights the jealousy that can arise due to a lack of communication and illustrates the irony of their relationship being broken down by a website that markets itself as a way of bringing people together.

This album was four years in the making and it’s easy to see why

The most emotionally charged moments on this record come courtesy of “White Ferarri”, a heartfelt ballad that explores young love. As acoustic chords swirl around the mix, Ocean’s vocals are allowed to take centre stage and provide the emotional weight to the lyrics, allowing a moment of true connection between the musician and the listener. Interestingly, Paul McCartney and John Lennon are listed as co-writers in the album credits due to the song’s interpolation of the Beatles classic: “Here, There and Everywhere”. This is such an exquisitely niche touch to the song that goes so easily under the radar, but is, perhaps, the most fitting symbol for the incredible level of craftmanship that Ocean puts into his work. This album was four years in the making and it’s easy to see why. However, the lyrical and sonic intricacy that permeates throughout the album made it well worth the wait.

Overall, Frank Ocean is an artist in the truest sense of the word and Blonde is his masterpiece. The visceral emotional responses that it elicits makes it feel like it transcends music as a genre into something more, a kind of guided meditation that taps into the most fundamental parts of human nature. The fact that it focuses on feelings that our so intrinsic to our psyche will make it exist independently of time as a lens through which the staggering complexities of life are distilled into their most elementary form. As I said at the beginning: this is not an album, this is a religious experience.